Page 20 of Sawyer

“You…weren’t pretending?”

“That’syour takeaway?”

His lips tilt up, but only a tiny bit. “That’s the most important part.”

“No. I wasn’t pretending,” I say softly. “But come on, Sawyer…I think we both knew it was just a summer fling. We agreed to that.”

“Yeah, well, things changed that summer,” he says, his eyes sliding to my lips and holding there for an agonizing beat. When they meet mine again, they’re black and angry, almost…wolfish.

“We werealwaysa summer thing,” I remind him. “Paired up at summer camp when we were kids. Hanging out on the Fourth of July when we were teenagers—”

“Because summer was the only time we ever saw each other. Wecould’vebeen more,” he mutters.

I don’t know if he’s right or not. He’s blaming the fact that we didn’t stay together afterthatsummer on the fact that I left for college in September. But we could have agreed to a long-distance relationship while he stayed in Skagway and I went back to college. We didn’t. Despite our friends-with-benefits status during most of my summers in Skagway, I’d never really considered Sawyer a contender for a serious relationship. I cared about him, yes. I may have even been a little bit in love with himthatsummer. But Sawyer and I always existed in a place of finiteness. There were boundaries to our time together, and that time started in May and ended in September. Four monthsa year. That’s all we’d ever known, and it wasn’t enough to build something serious, no matter how much we liked each other.

He sighs loudly, looking deeply annoyed with me before changing the subject.

“You’re a good actor,” he says. “I really believed you. A few times I even…”

“Even what?”

“Took it personally,” he admits. “The way you were acting felt…personal.”

I’m about to tell him it wasn’t—that it was one hundred percent an act for the sake of the part—but suddenly, I’m not so sure. And frankly, I don’t like all of this uncertainty. I’m not used to it. I don’t like questioning things; it’s easier to ride out the status quo than to question it. Questioning it can lead to change, and change—like my mother leaving, like my aunt getting cancer—can hurt.

“It wasn’t personal,” I say lightly, hoping I sound more convincing than I feel. “I did a lot of plays in college. I was just using that experience to sell the part.”

“Gotcha,” he says, but his expression says he’d love to call me out on my bullshit. “Whatever you say.”

“Listen…” I stare at my feet as I try to get my thoughts together. “If we’re cast as Heathcliff and Catherine, we’re going to be spending a lot of time together and I just…I just want…”

“What do you want, princess?”

My eyes snap up to meet his. He hasn’t called me “princess” in over a year, and it brings back raw memories.

“Don’t call me that.”

“You used to like it.”

“Please, Sawyer,” I say, starting to feel tired. “Please can we just play nice and get along?”

He stares at me for a long beat, then smiles acidly and looks away.

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“You got it.”

“Hey, guys!” Reeve sticks her face out of the theater door. “Come back inside, okay? Bruce is going to announce the cast list.”

His sister disappears, and Sawyer takes one last look at the sky before sliding his eyes to my face. The way he looks at me makes me feel naked and vulnerable, seen and judged, cherished and despised. A shiver runs down my spine.

He reaches for the door and holds it open.

“After you, Catherine.”

And so it begins, Heathcliff.

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